Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Bach concertos and cantatas

2006; Oxford University Press; Volume: 34; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/em/cal047

1741-7260

P. Holman,

Bach Studies and Logistics Development

This batch of CDs provides a convenient opportunity to survey current trends in Bach performance. They are all by established early music groups using period instruments, which carries the expectation that their performances will have rather different aims from mainstream modern orchestras or choirs. We may not want period-instrument groups to reproduce exactly what happened on a particular day in Cöthen or Leipzig, but it is reasonable for us to expect them to respect Bach's intentions where they can be divined, and at the least they should conform to the general principles of Baroque performance practice. Judged from this standpoint, all five recordings here are wanting in some aspects, though collectively they are impressive testimony to the high musical standards now being achieved by period-instrument groups. Rinaldo Alessandrini's new recording Bach: Brandenburg Concertos (Naïve op 30412, rec 2005, 143′) has the advantage that it is played one to a part throughout, as Bach undoubtedly intended, and it has as a bonus Bach's spectacular reworking of the first movement of no.3 with oboes and horns as the sinfonia to Cantata 174, as well as the extraordinary early version of the harpsichord cadenza in the first movement of no.5, added disconcertingly as a ‘bleeding chunk’ without re-recording the whole movement. On the down side, the horns in no.1 use anachronistic hand-stopping; the trumpeter in no.2 has a modern brassy tone and does not know when to play softly; and the violone part in no.6 is played on a 16′-pitch instrument rather than the 8′ instrument Bach seems to have intended (see L. Dreyfus, Bach's continuo group (1987), pp.142–51). On the purely musical side, Concerto Italiano play with considerable energy and virtuosity, though there is a tendency to rush on occasion (the third movement of no.2 and the second of no.3 are particularly breathless), apparently pushed along by Alessandrini at the harpsichord, and there are annoying gimmicks such as the harpsichord link at the end of the first movement of no.3, the lack of any slowing down at the end of the first movement of no.1 and the third of no.2, and the way themes such as the rising arpeggio motif in the first movement of no.3 are illogically singled out to be played extra legato. Alessandrini is also not always subtle in his shaping—every bar of the minuet theme of the fourth movement of no.1 is accented, for instance—or alive to the implications of the harmony, as in the third movement of no.6, where the dramatic passages at bars 45–6 and 58–9 go for very little. The standard of the playing on this set is very high, though Alessandrini's direction is too eccentric and unsubtle to allow it to compete with the best period-instrument versions, such as the one by the Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin (Harmonia Mundi). The two CDs are supplemented by a DVD with interviews, rehearsal sequences and other material.